As the soothsayer, Mrs. Bindloss … no, Bindfast … said, too, there were the victims of Bellis’s philanderings. But he had apparently been faithful to Bessie Emmott after his fashion for a long time, which ruled out any revenge by lover or relative.
Lastly, the Bessie Emmott-Alice Bryan mix-up. Luxmore, Alice’s one-time boy friend, had an alibi, given to Cromwell by two no-account girls, but none the less there. Then, what about Bessie herself? She had apparently been almost demented on learning of Bellis’s fondness for Alice. Could she possibly have seen the train stopped, gone down the platelayers’ steps for an explanation at once from Bellis and shot him in a fit of rage? She certainly could!
Lastly, Mr. Lambert Hiss, widower, who had been keen on Bessie for years. Had he read the letter before giving it to her, and, seeing red, made an end to the man who had frustrated him for so long?
All the same, you’d think Mr. Hiss would have been content to let the letter do its work and then spring in and catch Bessie on the rebound. Instead, he had gone sick and was mournfully keeping house and blowing his sentimental melancholy into his trombone.
“May I offer you another drink, sir?”
Eaves’s admiring gaze fell on Littlejohn’s empty tankard. He wondered what Henry, the lanky barman, was doing and longed to be getting at him again to bully and hustle him about.
“No thanks, Eaves. I’d better be getting along. Thanks for your help.”
“It’s been whatyermaycall a great honour, sir, and I’m very glad to’ve been able to ’elp. Excuse me. Hi, Henry. Have you done the knives and forks on the tables for lunch yet?”
Eaves swooped on his prey and reduced him to trembling incoherency.
“N-n-n-n-o.”
“Well, go and get ’em done. At wunst. This very minute. You’ll ’ave lunch on before you’ve got ’em out. Jildy, me boy … getamoveon.”
On the way out Littlejohn, full of compassion for the sickly, browbeaten Henry, surreptitiously passed him half-a-crown.
“Like it here?” he asked, expecting a disgusted negative.
“Fine,” came the reply. “Mr. Eaves is a champion boss. Proper training he’s givin’ me. One day I’ll be a proper waiter and wear stiff shirt an’ tails …”
No accounting for taste!
Mr. Archibald Manners, owner of the Mereton Little Wonder Stores, was officiously walking the floor of his shop when Littlejohn entered. It was a poor imitation of a large London stores. Wax dummies displaying “the latest” all over the place. Little bits of counters labelled “Millinery,” “Underwear,” “Kiddies’ Corner,” “Ironmongery” and the like, with hardly room to whip a cat round through congestion. Mereton people seemed to like it, however, for Manners was reputed to be nicely off.
Mr. Manners himself looked a perfect counter-jumper.
Dressed in black jacket and grey trousers, with a high stiff collar to finish them off. His face was triangular, with the tip of his nose the apex, from which his brow and chin sloped away. He had on a pair of overbearingly heavy black shell spectacles. His prominent eyes sized-up Littlejohn as he approached.
“Gents’ departments upstairs, sir.”
Littlejohn told Mr. Manners who he was and asked for a word with him in private.
As he led the Inspector to his room, Mr. Manners burst into copious perspiration, and his knees almost gave beneath him. He had been doing some coupon-free dealing with selected wealthy clients, and thought that someone had let the cat out of the bag.
“I’m investigating the murder of the late Mr. Bellis, sir.”
Mr. Manners might have been given a powerful stimulant. His colour returned, he felt fine, and he invited Littlejohn to a glass of whisky and a cigar.
“Do, Inspector. I still manage to get hold of a bit of good Scotch,” he pleaded after Littlejohn had declined.
“No, thank you, sir. I don’t as a rule drink when on duty.”
He hoped Manners couldn’t smell the Union Club beer!
“On the night Mr. Bellis died, I’ve been informed that you and Mr. Hall assisted Mr. Claypott to the train. Is that so?”
Mr. Manners washed his hands in thin air.
“Quite right, Inspector. I remember saying that I must have been one of the last to see Mr. Bellis alive.”
“Will you kindly cast your mind back to that evening, sir? Just tell me what happened.”
“Well …”
Mr. Manners contorted his face, removed his glasses, without which he looked quite a different and insignificant man, and polished them vigorously. He must have worn them to correct a squint, for one eye, released from the grip of the controlling lenses, gradually began to move until the pupil was almost in the corner of the socket. Before it could disappear altogether into some part of his head, Mr. Manners had replaced his spectacles and restored things to normal.
“Well … Claypott … and Hall as well, had taken too much. Eaves came to remind them that unless they went at once, Claypott would miss his last train. Claypott was a bit truculent and talked about sleeping at the club, which was against the rules. So I stepped in and offered to see him safely to the train. Hall, who was as stubborn as a mule, offered to come with us, and tacked himself on in spite of my efforts to stop him. We saw Claypott to the train, left him with the guard, whom we asked to put him out at Salton.”
The room was made of glass partitions, and furnished in a flashy modern style. There was in one corner another wax dummy wearing a dreadful plus-four suit, as though crowded out of the shop. The faces of assistants anxious to consult Mr. Manners kept being pressed against the opaque glass panel of the closed door and retreating as they found another figure darkly silhouetted opposite him. If they hesitated, Mr. Manners called out “Engaged.”
On a maze of overhead wires small cash containers kept whizzing past to and from the counting house.
“Did you notice anything particular happening about the station?”
“In what way?”
“Nobody suspicious hanging around, sir, or coming and going whilst you were about.”
“Not at all … What is it?”
After a lot of bobbing about on the other side of the door, a shopwalker had the temerity to enter. He excused himself and whispered to the boss. All transactions over ten shillings had to be initialled by Mr. Manners or his deputy, Mr. Flather. The latter had gone out for a coffee, and the system had thus been plunged into confusion by Mr. Manners’ sudden withdrawal from circulation.
“Initial them yourself, man … And tell the cashier to bring all that you initial to me for counter-signature afterwards.”
And he brushed the man away with a flick of his heavy paw.
“Well, sir, could you tell me what the station staff were doing when you arrived there?”
“Packing up ready for going home. They were just going to put out the lights.”
“Did you have to take a platform ticket to get on? It’s a closed station, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But Hiss, the ticket collector, knew our business and didn’t bother. In any case, he didn’t notice us. He was in his box engrossed in a letter he was reading.”
“Reading a letter?”
“Yes. Looking very fed up about something. Must have been bad news.”
“Was he there when you returned, after seeing Mr. Claypott on his way?”
“Yes. Still reading.”
“Did you see Miss Emmott on the platform, sir?”
“Yes … Engaged!”
“You left her there?”
“Yes. We just saw Claypott off and came out. Miss Emmott was watching Bellis off.”
“Nothing else, sir?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, I’m very much obliged to you for your help, Mr. Manners. I’ll be getting along.”
“Sorry I’ve not been much use. …”
If he only knew! thought Littlejohn, as Mr. Manners escorted him, hand on his elbow in matey fashion, to the revolving doors.
G
LAD TO SEE YOU, COME AGAIN said a bright notice over the exit.
CHAPTER XV
The Last Bus
From Manners’ shop Littlejohn made his way to the central ’bus depot for Mereton and district. The place hummed with activity. Buses rushing in and out all the time.
The Inspector was seeking confirmation of what happened on the last bus from the station on the night of the murder and wanted to find the conductor. When he made himself known in the enquiry office they hustled him into the room of the local manager at once. The great man himself was out at lunch, but a clerk turned up the records and schedules, discovering that one Bert Hood had been conducting the vehicle in question, and that he was at present, according to schedules again, somewhere between Ellinborne and Salton, on his way back to Mereton, where his bus was due to arrive at 2.30.
Littlejohn, leaving word that he wished to see Hood when he got in, then went and had his own lunch, which was a miserable affair and cost him five shillings at the best hotel in the town.
They fetched Bert Hood from the canteen where he was drinking hot tea, when Littlejohn returned. The conductor proved to be a tall, bony, hatchet-faced fellow of about forty, with a shock of fiery red hair leaping up from his scalp like tongues of flame. He was a pleasant laconic sort of man, always good tempered and unperturbed by all the indignities and complaints heaped upon his narrow shoulders by the travelling public.
“Afternoon, sir. What can I do you for?” said Bert, inserting a battered Woodbine in his large mouth and lighting it after a long time of grinding away at his lighter.
“You were on the last bus from the station across the bridge on the night of the Bellis murder, Hood?”
“’S ri’, Inspector. Hate last buses. Everybody down in the dumps or else drunk. Difficult lot to ’andle. …”
“Do you know Miss Bessie Emmott?”
“Ra-ther. Regular customer. Allus on that bus after seein’ off the old man on the Salton train. Regular as clockwork.”
“She was on the bus that night?”
“Yes. But got out at the first stop. On the bridge it was. I was a bit tuck aback. She hadn’t paid and I didn’t know whether to charge ’er or not. Twopence ha’penny all the way on that bus, see? So, as she looked so bad, I decided to let ’er off.”
“She looked bad, did she?”
“Ra-ther. Seem to come over her all of a sudden. One minute she seemed to be readin’ a letter. Next she was holdin’ her head and stuffin’ her handkerchief in her mouth. Must ’ave come over sick. Not surprised on that ’bus. Air gets bad after so many runs, ’specially when the drunks get on as well.”
“She got off at the bridge?”
“ ’S ’ri …”
“See where she went?”
“No. I was busy with me fares.”
“Anybody else get off at the same place?”
“Yes. Come to think of it, there did. Mr … what’s ’is name … the ticket collector chap at the station … Hiss … That’s the one. Got off sudden like, just the same as Miss Emmott. Same spot, too.”
“Any idea what made him do that?”
“Not the foggiest. Two of ’em on the same night. I see Hiss out of the corner of me eye watchin’ Miss Emmott readin’ the letter. He was sittin’ right at the back, two or three rows away from Miss Emmott. When she gets up, he half moves to speak, then sits back a minute. Next, before I could get his perishin’ fare, off he jumps after ’er. Don’t know what come over him, but I lost another twopence ha’penny there.”
“Thanks very much, Hood. You told your tale very clearly. I’m grateful …”
“Don’t mench, sir. Pleasure … Want me for anythin’ more? My bus is due out.”
And with that he was off to join his mate, chucking the conductresses under the chin and digging the drivers in the ribs on the way. The girls described him as a proper scream.
To Littlejohn it all seemed a question of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s now. It certainly looked as though Lambert Hiss had read the letter before handing it to Bessie Emmott and dealt with Bellis himself. Littlejohn had taken rather a fancy to the lovelorn trombonist and hated the idea.
The next port of call was Hitchfields (The Grocers), Limited, where Littlejohn had a question to put to Humphrey Godwin, the man who, according to Cromwell, was ignorantly responsible for the shocking state of his offspring’s stomach and his own sleepless days and nights. The shop was in the main square and there were queues at all the many counters.
Godwin, easily recognisable from Cromwell’s description, chimpanzee in spectacles, was busy meticulously dividing butter and margarine into proper rationed portions and dishing them out slowly to a file of anything but patient women.
“Back o’ the queue,” he yelled at Littlejohn in his customary overwrought shout. He had been up nearly all the past night again. “Back o’ the queue, I said, didn’t I?”
“Wait till the war’s over,” muttered a women, forgetting that all hostilities except those in the shops had already ceased.
Littlejohn made straight for a glass pen which looked like the manager’s den, routed out the boss and told him who he was and what he wanted.
The manager thereupon went to Humphrey and, in a stage whisper, told him that the police wanted to see him.
Word was passed from mouth to mouth down the queue and the women forgot all about rations in their anxiety to learn what Godwin had been up to.
“Like as not strangled the baby in a temper,” said a woman who lived in Humphrey’s street and suffered along with the rest from the constant commotion going on there.
“I told the other chap all I know,” shouted Godwin on arriving in the glass pen. “Don’t see why I should keep bein’ pestered. Might think I did the old blighter in meself.”
He was not a whit intimidated by the presence of Scotland Yard. He had long gone past fear of anything but going mad from shortage of sleep.
“All I want to check up on is a statement you made to my colleague.”
Littlejohn consulted his notes.
“You said: ‘I saw the guard walking down the train. He climbed into one.’ What made you say that?”
“Oh dear me … Wot makes you say anything? I see somebody walkin’ down the train when I leaned out to shout at the driver to shut-up. I’ve had an apology from the company, by the way, for the row he kicked up.”
“You have, have you? Well, what about the guard?”
“What about him? Nothin’. Except that I thought it was the guard. Who else would you think’d be prowlin’ up and down and climbin’ in and out of carriages at that time o’ night? You’d think the same yourself.”
“Of course I would. What did this person look like?”
“Now look ’ere. My customers is waitin’ for me and are gettin’ mad. I told it all to your other chap. Wot have I to go through the whole blasted rigmarole agen for?”
“We’re going to be here all night at this rate, Mr. Godwin. Perhaps you’d better come over to the police station and we’ll have it out there in peace and quiet …”
That did it! Humphrey was soon tumbling over himself to answer Littlejohn and get him out of the way. He saw himself in a cell with the baby howling his head off and nobody there in the small hours. That he might get some sleep in the lock-up didn’t seem to strike him!
Yes, he thought it was the guard. He told the other detective that he saw he had trousers on … and, he thought, a peaked cap too. Just got a glance of it as the man’s head popped up against the dim light of the carriage into which he was climbing. Was that all?
Littlejohn needed just one little piece more of background and then he’d have to discuss with Forrester the question of issuing a warrant for the arrest of Hiss on suspicion. Salton and Mereton were in the same police district, which was convenient.
At Mereton Station, the Inspector made straight for the office of the stationmaster who looked like a tadpole, Mr. Albert Blaze. He was lucky in his choice of time, for he
found Mr. Blaze in the best of tempers. As his nose, incandescent as from hidden fires, announced, the station-master suffered from chronic indigestion. For an hour after a meal he was more or less approachable. After that time, his gastric juices and the meal he had eaten seemed to enter into violent conflict, causing internal effervescence and boiling. Thereupon Mr. Blaze would, to take his mind from his internal convulsions, bellow and roar at his staff, quarrel with his customers and rush up and down his platforms hustling off trains or holding them up as the spirit moved him.
Mr. Blaze knew Lambert Hiss inside out, for he also was a member of Mount Horeb. In fact, a prominent one. Church Secretary. This and his capacity as Sunday School Superintendent had endowed Mr. Blaze with the gift of the gab. He was ready to talk at great length on any subject Littlejohn cared to broach.
“I think my colleagues from Salton have already had a word with you about happenings on the station on the night of the crime, Mr. Blaze.”
“They have, Inspector, they have. Would you like me to go through them again? Very pleased to do so.”
“No, thank you, sir. We know who travelled by the train and what happened on the platform. We overlooked the fact that this is a closed station …”
“Yes. Been a closed station since before my time. Some companies prefer open ones, others closed ones. Now our company …”
“We overlooked the fact that there was a man on duty at the entrance to the platforms upstairs …”
“Oh, Hiss. Yes, he was on duty.”
“Gave us quite a bit of useful information. He saw Miss Emmott and Bellis come on, as well as Claypott and the rest …”
“Yes?”
Mr. Blaze didn’t want Littlejohn to do all the talking. He liked to hear himself doing it.
“Very decent chap is Hiss,” he said. “Member of the same chapel as myself. Fine player on the trombone, too.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Death on the Last Train Page 14